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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23865727">I know it’s dangerous (but it's you that I need)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/justhockey/pseuds/justhockey'>justhockey</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>9-1-1 (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst with a Happy Ending, Buck is a Good Dad, Episode: s03e15 Coda, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Hurt Eddie Diaz, Insecure Evan "Buck" Buckley, Love Confessions, M/M, Mutual Pining, eddie begins</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 23:02:01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,306</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23865727</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/justhockey/pseuds/justhockey</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>When Buck closes his eyes he can still feel the mud between his fingers from where he’d try to claw him out, all fear and anger and desperate determination.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>430</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>I know it’s dangerous (but it's you that I need)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Title from <i>What Have I Done</i> by Dermot Kennedy.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>If Buck has ever had a worse day on the job, he’s struggling to remember it. </p><p>It felt like his heart had been cut in two along with the rope that was tethering Eddie to any semblance of safety. He had been quite literally holding Eddie’s life in his hands, and then too suddenly for him to comprehend the weight on the other end was gone, and so was Eddie. </p><p>Buck felt so thoroughly <i>broken</i> that for a moment he was convinced he was dying. He <i>knew</i> Eddie needed more time, he’d begged Cap to let him have it. He should have tried harder, he should have done more. It was his job to protect his partner and he’d failed. He couldn’t remember ever feeling pain or fear like the one he felt coursing through his blood stream when he realised what Eddie had done.</p><p>(Except for those agonising hours when he had scoured the city searching for Christopher.)</p><p>The taste in his mouth was bitter as he watched Chim go down to get Eddie and the boy, and he couldn’t help the voice in his head repeating <i>it should be you, it should be you, it should be you</i>. Because it <i>should</i> have been. He should have gone down in Eddie’s place, should have never let him his risk his life when his little boy was waiting at home. And it should have been him to go back down and pull Eddie out, because he knows the team loves Eddie, but not like <i>Buck</i> loves him. </p><p>And then, <i>god</i>, the <i>anguish</i>, the sheer terror that consumed him when the lightning struck, when the truck fell, when the earth collapsed on top of Eddie. </p><p>When Buck closes his eyes he can still feel the mud between his fingers from where he’d try to claw him out, all fear and anger and desperate determination. They were <i>not</i> leaving him behind, not as long as there was still breath in Buck’s aching lungs. </p><p>But the looks on Bobby, Chim, and Hen’s faces were resigned, like they didn’t believe Eddie could have survived. And maybe if it was someone else they wouldn’t have, but it was <i>Eddie,</i> and if anyone could survive it, it was him.</p><p>Buck loves his team. Even through the lawsuit he hadn’t been angry at them, just hurt, desperate, lonely. But the absolute fury that burned inside him felt almost uncontrollable. It felt like they were giving up on him and they couldn’t, not when he knew that Eddie would never give up, never leave them, Christopher, <i>him.</i></p><p>Buck had failed Eddie and Christopher more times than he could count, but he wasn’t going to fail them again. Not with this. He’d have stayed out in the storm all night, digging alone with his bare hands if that was what it took. </p><p>Buck sucks in a breath, tries to unclench his jaw. </p><p>Eddie is safe. They got him out, they didn’t give up even when it looked to be impossible. And the hospital is too bright and too white for Buck’s tired eyes, but he can’t bear to drag himself away from Eddie’s bedside, even while the nurses fuss around him to check his vitals. </p><p>He’s afraid that if he leaves him alone for even a moment, Eddie will disappear. </p><p>They didn’t get time to talk in the chaos after Eddie made it back to them. It was a haze of adrenaline and relief as Buck and Bobby held on tight and all but carried him over to the ambulance for Chim and Hen to work their magic. </p><p>But Buck was kind of glad, he knows he’d have said something too impulsive and too important to take back. But now he doesn’t know how to talk to Eddie, how to even look at him, because he’s so, <i>so</i> mad at him. The anger fizzes just under the surface of his skin, and Buck is certain it’s the only thing keeping him warm after a night spent out in the rain. Because Eddie was stupid, and so reckless with his life that it makes Buck want to cry, even if he understands why Eddie did it. </p><p>He’s relieved too, obviously. So that’s the emotion he’s choosing to focus on right now. It’s why he’s waiting so nervously for the nurses to finally leave them alone, just so he can look into Eddie’s eyes and truly <i>know</i> that he’s ok. He can shout at him later, give him a lecture that would rival even Athena, but for now he just <i>needs</i>. </p><p>God, he’s so in love he feels sick with it. He’s fucking tired of almost losing the Diaz boys. Eddie and Christopher are the two most important people in the world to him aside from Maddie, and he’s had front row seats to both of their near death experiences. It’s not fair. Each time he feels like he’s being ripped apart limb from limb, watching helplessly as the water steals them away from him. </p><p>“Are you okay?” Eddie asks, his voice is hoarse but it echoes in the now empty room.</p><p>The nurses have finally left and Buck is alone with him. He has to take a breath before he can raise his head and look at him, everything is just too much and too scary and of <i>course</i> Eddie is worrying about him anyway, even after Buck let him down again.</p><p>“Am <i>I</i> okay? Eddie, you’re the one in a hospital bed,” Buck says, frustrated.</p><p>He looks okay, all things considered. His skin is pale from exhaustion and hypothermia and god knows what else, but he’s got an almost nervous, half-smile curling his lips, and he’s alive and breathing. So. It could be worse. Buck’s hand aches to reach out and hold him. </p><p>“I heard you were pretty worried,” Eddie explains, shrugging his shoulders then wincing with the movement. </p><p>And Buck kind of curls in on himself at that. He knows it was Hen and Chim who told him, probably in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. Buck wishes he’d been there to stop them. </p><p>He knows what he must have looked like, screaming out Eddie’s name and then sobbing in Bobby’s lap when he’d finally managed to pull Buck away. He’s not embarrassed exactly, he just feels exposed, vulnerable, like surely Eddie must know now. How could he <i>not?</i></p><p>“I thought we were about to lose you, buddy,” Buck says. </p><p>And it doesn’t even begin to cover how Buck was feeling in that moment, is <i>still</i> feeling even now, as Eddie sits right in front of him, breathing and talking. But he’s scared that if he tries to fully explain then it would take him a lifetime. And he’s afraid that if he does manage to find the words to articulate the pain he was in, he’ll scare Eddie away. Those kinds of feelings are too much even for Buck to really process. </p><p>“I’m sorry for worrying you,” Eddie apologises. </p><p> Buck wants to laugh but he thinks he’s forgotten how to. </p><p>“Yeah, you should be,” he agrees.</p><p>It’s supposed to be a joke, something to ease the atmosphere building between them, but it falls kind of flat. The wounds are too fresh right now to make jokes. Buck can still taste rain mixed with tears, and still feel the squeeze in his chest. And if the look in Eddie’s eyes is anything to go by, his mind is still halfway underground, buried and drowning. </p><p>Buck feels a pang of guilt. He’s being selfish like he usually is. And he truly doesn’t mean to be, but he figures that’s just typical of him - too selfish to realise he’s even doing it. He’s been so focused on his own feelings that he’d missed the haunted look in Eddie’s eyes. If Buck had been terrified, he can’t even begin to imagine how Eddie must have felt. </p><p>He squeezes his eyes shut to force away the tears that are threatening to spill. He doesn’t need to make this about him. </p><p>The room is silent again for a while. Buck’s eyes are glued to the heart rate monitor, and the lines as they rise and fall. He doesn’t know what to say, he doesn’t think sorry could even come close to making it ok. </p><p>“I’m sorry,” he whispers, trying anyway. </p><p>He looks at Eddie to watch for his reaction, and sees his eyebrows furrow and head tilt slightly. He kind of looks like a puppy, and Buck would maybe laugh if he wasn’t so exhausted.</p><p>“What the hell are <i>you</i> sorry for?”</p><p>Eddie doesn’t sound angry, just confused, and Buck thinks for probably the millionth time that there’s nothing in the world he could do to make him deserve Eddie Diaz’s friendship. </p><p>“I need you to know that I wanted to come for you, but Cap wouldn’t send me,” Buck tells him, his voice cracking halfway through. </p><p>They had all known that if they sent Buck down he wouldn’t have gone back up without Eddie. Hen had been right, they would have had another cut rope on their hands. But. Buck still feels the guilt so heavily that it weighs like something tangible on his chest. </p><p>He gave up too quickly. If he’d have done more, worked harder, stood his ground, none of this would have happened. </p><p>How would he have been able to look Christopher in the eyes and tell him that his father was gone, when Buck was the one who was supposed to have his back, protect him? He would have carried that with him for the rest of his life. </p><p>Eddie doesn’t answer for a while, and Buck’s insides twist with anxiety at the possibility of Eddie being mad at him. God knows he deserves it, but it almost killed him the last time, Buck isn’t sure he could survive losing them again. </p><p>When Eddie finally does answer, his voice is quiet and shy, but the look in his eyes is determined. </p><p>“Good, I needed you up here.”</p><p>Buck shakes his head. “No, no I should have come for you, or I should have gone in your place, or-“</p><p>Buck’s argument dies in his throat when Eddie reaches out his hand and grabs hold of the one Buck is gesturing with. He pulls it close to him so Buck has to lean forward, then cases it between both of his own. </p><p>Buck kind of forgets how to breathe.</p><p>“I needed a reason to fight to make it back,” Eddie says, “and you and Christopher were it.”</p><p>Buck shakes his head. He can’t hear that, because it sounds too much like what he wants so desperately for Eddie to say, but it’s still not quite there. And he can’t hope like that, hope is a dangerous think for a man like Buck, who’s been kicked down a million times but stands up again after every one, hoping somehow it will be different this time. </p><p>“I know you would have both been ok because I know you and Christopher would have taken care of each other,” Eddie continues, squeezing Buck’s hand between his own. </p><p>The way he says it, like Buck is part of their family, like Buck <i>belongs,</i> it’s almost too much for him to bear. He closes his eyes tightly. </p><p>“I shouldn’t have let you go down there,” Buck whispers. </p><p>“You couldn’t have stopped me,” Eddie replies, with the voice he usually saves for coaxing Christopher into doing something he doesn’t want to do. </p><p>And Buck knows that’s true, because Eddie is too determined and too <i>good</i>. He would have never let anyone else go down after the kid, not unless Cap had ordered it. Hayden already knew his voice, yes, but Buck knows that the main reason he wanted to go down was because he knew the dangers, and didn’t want any of his team to have to face them. </p><p>Buck hadn’t realised you could be <i>too</i> selfless until he met Eddie Diaz. </p><p>“Christopher would have lost you, Eddie,” Buck says. </p><p>And he lets some of his earlier anger seep into his voice because <i>fuck</i>, doesn’t he get it? How close he came to death? How close he came to leaving Christopher behind?</p><p>“I know you would have taken care of him,” Eddie says.</p><p>His voice sounds so certain that Buck wants to cry. He’ll never understand how he got so lucky, or why Eddie trusts him with Christopher so unflinchingly, but having Eddie’s trust with the one thing that matters most to him is Buck’s greatest accomplishment. </p><p>“I don’t know how to be a dad, Eddie,” Buck sighs. </p><p>The smile that spreads across Eddie’s face is equal parts beautiful and confusing. Buck doesn’t know what he’s done to earn it, but he thinks he would do the same thing every day for the rest of his life if Eddie would just keep looking at him like that. </p><p>“Buck, you already <i>are</i>,” he says so easily. </p><p>It feels like everything somehow stops and speeds up simultaneously. </p><p>“What?” Buck manages to choke out. </p><p>Eddie chuckles softly and shakes his head in fond exasperation. </p><p>“You’re already Christopher’s dad,” he says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. </p><p>And he’s been fighting to keep the tears at bay all evening but now they fall freely down his cheeks and he doesn’t have the energy to stop them, he probably wouldn’t want to even if he could. Because Eddie has just handed Buck the one thing he’s always wanted as if it isn’t the most important, amazing gift he’s ever been given. </p><p>In the furthest corners of his mind, the deepest parts of his heart, he’s always wanted to be a father to Christopher, maybe even pretended that he was sometimes - not even as an extension of his relationship with Eddie, just because he loves the kid like crazy. But never in his wildest dreams had Buck ever imagined that Eddie could see him that way too, as a father to his son. </p><p>It makes his heart feel things that Buck didn’t even know were possible. </p><p>He doesn’t have the words to give a name to this thing that he and Eddie have, thinks that the words don’t yet exist for just how deeply Eddie and Christopher have managed to bury their way under his skin. It lives quietly in the spaces between them, a constant buzzing that Buck has been fighting to ignore, but he isn’t sure that he wants to anymore. </p><p>It feels like after all the waiting and the wanting, after dancing around each other for so long, it should be a bigger moment, somehow. But Eddie is alive and he’s smiling at Buck like he’s everything he has ever wanted. And Buck is just so thankful, so completely and utterly relieved and <i>happy,</i> that he leans forward and kisses him. </p><p>Eddie’s hand instantly comes up to clutch at the back of Buck’s head, refusing to let him pull away for even a second. Buck’s free hand, the one that isn’t already grasping Eddie’s, comes up to hold onto Eddie’s forearm, gripping it so tightly it’s like he’s afraid to let go. </p><p>The kiss is as gentle as a whisper, a complete oxymoron to the way they’re holding onto each other for dear life, but it steals Buck’s breath all the same.</p><p>He’s still crying a little, and he thinks that Eddie might be too, but neither of them mind. They just hold on, letting their lips slowly learn the taste of each other. </p><p>When they eventually move apart, Eddie smiles so softly at him that it feels like coming home, like they were made to be together, like they’ve been waiting their whole lives for this. Buck thinks he probably has. </p><p>“Eddie, I-“ </p><p>“I know. I know, Evan. Me too.”</p><p>They’re both breathless, and elated, and exhausted, feeling so many emotions that Buck doesn’t know what to do with them. </p><p>His heart feel so full, like nothing he’s ever known before. Perhaps because there’s a certainty to it. He knows beyond any doubt that this is real, from the way Eddie’s eyes glint as he smiles tiredly at him.</p><p>“Sleep,” Buck whispers against Eddie’s lips, “I’ll be here when you wake up.”</p><p>The second Eddie’s eye close, he’s asleep. Buck sits by his hospital bed, watching the rise and fall of his chest as he sleeps. The nurses that come in through the night try to send him home, but one look at his face tells them he isn’t going anywhere unless Athena herself drags him out in handcuffs. He’s not leaving Eddie, fuck, he never wants to let him out of his sight again.</p><p>Eventually exhaustion takes over, and Buck manages to catch a few hours of restless sleep. He wakes up every so often in a blind panic, needing to touch Eddie, his hand, arm, face, lips, just to check he’s really safe, to chase away the images that still linger behind his eyelids, of the mud burying him 40ft below the earth.  </p><p>After one particularly vivid dream, Buck startles himself awake. He’s breathless, and his hands tremble as he presses his thumb over the pulse point at Eddie’s neck, just so he knows he’s breathing, he’s still here. As a reminder of what he almost lost. As a reminder of what he found. </p><p>Eddie is still fast asleep when Abuela brings Christopher early the next morning, and Buck feels relief right down to his bones when he pulls Christopher onto his lap and hugs him tightly. He didn’t know he needed to have them both in the same room until the weight of Christopher against his chest and Eddie’s hand clasped in his own settles something deep inside of him, something he hadn’t even known was restless. </p><p>Buck makes small talk with Abuela for a while, but when it becomes apparent that Eddie won’t be waking up any time soon she kisses his forehead, then Christopher’s, and then Buck’s too, before leaving with a knowing smile on her face. </p><p>“Is dad okay?” Christopher asks.</p><p>He looks at Buck with wide, vulnerable eyes, and again he finds himself so overwhelmingly relieved that Eddie is okay, that he doesn’t have to tell this perfect, <i>innocent</i> kid that his dad isn’t coming come. </p><p>“Yeah buddy, he’s gonna be just fine,” Buck promises, smoothing back the curls that fall into Christopher’s face. </p><p>“Thank you,” Christopher says, bringing his hand up to rest gently on Buck’s cheek. </p><p>“What for, Chris?”</p><p>“Keeping him safe.”</p><p>Buck is too choked up to reply, and he’s not sure what he could possibly say anyway. So he just presses a kiss to Christopher’s forehead, then takes out his phone to distract both of them for a while. </p><p>“There are my boys,” Eddie says when he wakes up, his voice thick with sleep.</p><p>Buck and Christopher immediately look up from the game they’re playing and smile when they see Eddie’s eyes on them.</p><p>“Daddy,” Christopher cheers, and Buck and Eddie laugh at the way Christopher stretches his hands out to reach for his dad. </p><p>Buck stands up with Christopher in his arms, and walks over to the bed where he places him on Eddie’s lap. He can’t help the lump that forms in his throat watching Christopher cling onto Eddie, and he has to fight to push back the thought that this morning could have looked so, <i>so</i> different. </p><p>But all of the tension leaves his body when Eddie reaches a hand out to Buck, pulling him in so he’s sitting on the edge of the bed. Their arms all tangle together as they hold each other, and Buck can almost <i>feel</i> how grateful they all are that they still get to have this, that nothing has been taken from them. </p><p>They all know how lucky they are.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This is Not Good. I knew how I wanted it to read and what I wanted them to say but I couldn’t get it to work no matter what I did so I’m sorry it sucks, I just really wanted to write this from Buck’s pov too.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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